Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

Army Air Corps

08/24/2012

Second Lt. Samuel Smith knew what he was up against when his B-17 bomber group got orders to strike a German base that was home to 16 of the war's newest planes, the Messerschmitt Me-262 — the first jet-powered aircraft to be used in combat.

“On the mission before this we went to Hamburg and there must have been 15 of them in the air, and I must have seen 10 or 15 bombers go down,” he said.

A few weeks shy of 88, Smith was honored Friday for his heroics on the mission that took them Hopsten on March 21, 1945. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph's Taj Mahal, a crowd of more than 80 people giving a long standing ovation.

“He's a representative of a generation of Americans that did something special,” said Gen. Edward A. Rice Jr., head of the Air Education and Training Command and himself a bomber pilot. “We were talking about the thousand-plane raids that will probably never again be replicated.”

The medal, which falls between the Bronze Star and Silver Star, was given decades late because a commander during World War II refused to sign off on them.

Long after the war, at a reunion, the commander admitted he was wrong, apologized and helped Smith get the medal.

Still, it was a bittersweet day. Only three of Smith's eight crewmen and a few pilot buddies still are alive. Still sharp, he's the only member of the crew who is mobile.

“Here it is 60, 70 years later and finally the award is being made,” said Smith, a Kerrville petrochemical plant consultant. “It's a great thing to me, but in lots of respects it's kind of sad because the guys who flew with me and helped are not here.”

03/03/2012

The passage of 69 years has taken its toll on how Master Sgt. Charles Joyner is remembered by generations of his family. There are a few black-and-white pictures of the big, burly Army Air Corps mechanic who served his wife breakfast in bed. That's one anecdote, though far less is known of his death.

After sifting though government telegrams, details of his final days after surviving the Bataan Death March come into slightly sharper focus, but if many cherished memories have faded, Joyner grew larger than life Friday.

Surrounded by her family, his daughter Elaine Wachtendorf, 92, of San Antonio accepted a Purple Heart from Sen. John Cornyn for her long-lost father. It was as much a gift to her as a token of respect for his last sacrifice.

“I think it's wonderful,” she said after the ceremony, cradling a Purple Heart certificate signed by Army Secretary John McHugh.

“A long time in coming, but it's wonderful.”

“Mother's been mentioning it for several years, and so I thought it's so hard to make someone really, really happy when they're 92 years old and they don't have much to look forward to in life.”